What does that even mean?
It’s actually an Indian name.
At the end of India—my coleaders and myself traveled up to New Delhi. We hung out a day and then planned a day to travel to Agra, India to see the Taj Mahal. Instead of resorting to the much reliable (haha, NOT) public transportation of India— Tammy, Amanda and I just rented a car and driver for the day to drive us the 4 hours each way to see my first wonder of the world! I’m actually not sure if it was my first “wonder” or not—if you actually look it up there are more than 4 lists of the “7 wonders of the world”
Our first full day in Delhi we took a seven hour walking tour of Old Delhi while sampling the best of their food! It was delicious and full of culture and exhausting all at the same time. Our all day adventure paired with 12 other roommates in a mixed dorm at a local hostel didn’t pose for a well-rested night. So when being chauffeured at 6am we slept 90 percent of the way only waking for the promise of Indian chai! During our last 15 minutes of driving, our driver woke us to give us some insight on what to do and not do once going inside. He also questioned if we had slept the night before since we slept the entirety of our car ride. What a jokester.
Then we conquered the Taj!
Our driver just waited while we spent a few hours viewing the Taj and just called him when we were finished.
From that point on there wasn’t much silence in our car.
Prabhat had asked us a few questions before we fell asleep on the way to Agra, but now all three of us were fully engaged and impressed by our English conversation with this man. He proceeded to drive us to our next destination The Agra Fort, but upon arriving we realized we didn’t really want to spend another $10 to view a huge fort. So we continued on our route and continued conversations with Prabhat.
We asked Prabhat about his family—and he showed us pictures, while driving, in India… probably not the safest scenario I’ve been in. I was continually impressed by the amount of English Prabhat knew and the humor he had—especially his laughing at traffic police because he too knew, they did absolutely nothing. Our car was constantly filled with laughter and was fun to banter with someone with a quick wit— a rare occurrence when you spend most of your time conversing with broken English.
On the way back we heard about his family, children, career, and he even talked about his religion a little bit. Prabhat told us of how he was friends with Bill Gates (he was obviously lying) and joked about the most random of things. We took selfies when we stopped for chai on the way back to New Delhi (such an Asian thing) and he even added me on “What’s app” a worldwide messenger app. The day we went to see the Taj there was a team from my squad flying into New Delhi who was using the same car service the next day to see the Taj Mahal! We told Prabhat that he should drive our friends the next day since we enjoyed his company so much—but it was too late they already had another driver.
Each month we enter a new country we are challenged to find our “one”. The “one” is usually someone that a team can pour into—plant seeds, spend time with, and just love well. My team of squad leaders actually is almost never together since we disperse to spend time with teams that in different cities all over the country. But for this trip we were together and we made a friend that day—and I consider him our “one”.
My heart was so happy upon returning to our hostel, we were flying out early the next morning and had to leave to the airport in the middle of the night, but I was so content with our adventure day and our new friend—I didn’t even care.
The next morning (I mean later that night aka 2:30am) I was packing up my stuff so we could head to the airport and realized I had left my gopro in the car with Prabhat! I messaged him, but wasn’t very hopeful since our flight was in a few hours, it was the middle of the night, and I was about to lose wifi until I was back in Hyderabad.
8 hours later I was finally back at our ministry site where I had wifi. Prabhat had messaged me saying that he was on his way to drop off my gopro with the other team that had also used the same car service! And that night when they returned to Hyderabad they had my gopro in hand. We took time (maybe not on the way there) to genuinely hear about this man’s life—and he the next day, he went out of his way to take a camera across New Delhi to drop off to another team so I could have it back.
Sometimes I’m astounded by how natural and deep friendship can be overseas. People love strangers well—I have very rarely ever been disregarded on the street when asking for directions. And I will never forget our friend Prabhat and the willingness he had to be my friend, even just 30 hours after we met.
I’m hopeful that seeds will be continued to be planted in Prabhat’s life, because I want to see him come know Jesus.
Thanks for being my “one” Prabhat.
